The Playboy Club: Creator Wants Show to Move to Bravo

Published: October 7, 2011

After The Playboy Club was cancelled by NBC, Playboy’s Hugh Hefner wrote, “It should have been on cable, aimed at a more adult audience.” Chad Hodge, the TV series’ creator and executive producer, agrees and hopes that the show will find new life there. Hodge is a Chicago native who previously worked on shows like Tru Calling and created CW’s Runaway.

He recently told Out, “I think NBC gave up too soon… Had NBC stuck with the show I think many more millions would have eventually shown up. Those who found the show realized it wasn’t what they expected — it was good. It was entertaining, sophisticated, and dazzling. It dealt with social mores and moral ethics. And it was an intentional guilty pleasure.”

Hodge is hopeful however that another NBC channel might still rescue Playboy Club. He said, “For weeks now, I’ve been saying we should move over to Bravo. This is a fun, sexy, soapy show, and our core audience is women and gay men. No brainer for them. Bravo has wanted to get into scripted programming for years now. I’d love them to pick up the show. If one million people watched our show on Bravo — a quarter of our NBC audience — it would be a runaway hit.”

The show creator believes that Americans are too conservative about sex, but too liberal when it comes to violence. He noted, “What happened? Remember Basic Instinct? Fatal Attraction? The Red Shoe Diaries? We’ve become such prudes… Sexuality is part of life. I’d be more worried about my kid seeing horrific violence than I would about them seeing network-approved make-out sessions.”

Yes, please move the show to Bravo! Although I missed first two episodes on TV, I caught up on the web videos and was instantly hooked. This one is so much better than other things on the network right now – and I thnk the storyline is better than ABC’s PanAm. My husband and I don’t follow many shows, but we loved this one (and did I mention we’re also Mad Men fans)? I think the issue was the day and time for the show. Why Mondays at 10 PM when people are just getting back into the work week? A 9 PM slot later in the week would be more ideal. I don’t think enough people were exposed to it. I’ll admit I don’t tend to watch NBC very often…but I guess that’s because the only shows I like on their network get cancelled (I happened to be a Lipstick Jungle fan too).

Yes please move over to Bravo!! My husband and I love the show. We were hoping to watch it last night. We knew it was cancelled but hoped they would air one more episode. We live an hour from Chicago and find the history aspect of old Chicago very interesting. Love Eddie Ciribian and the bunny actresses are great! There wasn’t even any sex in the episodes, nothing soap operas don’t show in the daytime. Stupid move NBC. It was on at 10, kids should be in bed anyway!! Hope Bravo picks it up!? Thank you, Tanya Green

Please bring it back…one of my favorites on Monday. It did start out slow but it was gaining momentum and I am sure it would have gotten better with every episode. Shame on NBC for taking it off and leaving all the terrible sit-coms and sing a-alongs on. The “dumbing down of America” I say!